Best Hollywood Big Shot Who's Not George Lucas or Francis Ford Coppola

Ruby Yang

A A A Comments (0) Wednesday, May 17 2000

San Francisco's certainly got its fair share of Hollywood notables. But filmmaker and editor Ruby Yang has avoided the spotlight, even as her projects have become box office hits. Yang, who just relocated her offices to the film incubator in the Presidio, has made a number of short and industrial films. The testament to her filmmaking power, though, is her collaborations with directors like Wayne Wang and Joan Chen. Yang has edited or associate-produced critically acclaimed films like The Joy Luck Club, Dim Sum, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, and the Emmy Award-winning documentary A.K.A. Don Bonus. And in 1997, Yang stepped out of the editing suite to direct Citizen Hong Kong, which was screened internationally. Yang's tendency to be involved in Asian and Asian-American projects is no accident: As one of the few Asian-American editors and producers working on such large, commercial projects, she's befriended the likes of directors Wang and Chen, who seek out her tight, artistic post-production skills for their films. You'll be able to see her skillful editing in Joan Chen's forthcoming film, Autumn in New York, which stars Richard Gere and Winona Ryder.